He said in Court: "I must take 100 per cent
responsibility . . . . I even overruled objections by the Führer
and brought everything to its final development." In the seizure
of the Sudetenland, he played his role as Luftwaffe chief by planning
an air offensive which proved unnecessary, and his role as politician
by lulling the Czechs with false promises of friendship. The night
before the invasion of Czechoslovakia and the absorption of Bohemia
and Moravia, at a conference with Hitler and President Hacha he
threatened to bomb Prague if Hacha did not submit. This threat he
admitted in his testimony.

Goring attended the Reich Chancellery meeting of 23 May 1939 when
Hitler told his military leaders "there is, therefore, no
question of sparing Poland," and was present at the Obersalzberg
briefing of 22 August 1939. And the evidence shows he was active in
the diplomatic maneuvers which followed. With Hitler's connivance, he
used the Swedish businessman, Dahlerus, as a go-between to the
British, as described by Dahlerus to this Tribunal, to try to prevent
the British Government from keeping its guarantee to the Poles.

He commanded the Luftwaffe in the attack on Poland and throughout
the aggressive wars which followed.

Even if he opposed Hitler's plans against Norway and the Soviet
Union, as he alleged, it is clear that he did so only for strategic
reasons; once Hitler had decided the issue, he followed him without
hesitation. He made it clear in his testimony that these differences
were never ideological or legal. He was "in a rage" about
the invasion of Norway, but only because he had not received
sufficient warning to prepare the Luftwaffe offensive. He admitted he
approved of the attack: "My attitude was perfectly
positive." He was active in preparing and executing the
Yugoslavian and Greek campaigns, and testified that "Plan
Marita," the attack on Greece, had been prepared long
beforehand. The Soviet Union he regarded as the "most
threatening menace to Germany," but said there was no immediate
military necessity for the attack. Indeed, his only objection to the
war of aggression against the U.S.S.R. was its timing; he wished for
strategic reasons to delay until Britain was conquered. He testified:
"My point of view was decided by political and military reasons
only."

After his own admissions to this Tribunal, from the positions
which he held, the conferences he attended, and the public words he
uttered, there can remain no doubt that Göring was the moving
force for aggressive war, second only to Hitler. He was the planner
and prime mover in the military and diplomatic preparation for war
which Germany pursued.